Beyond the Veil
by untitled1494
Summary: A short history of the veil in the Department of Mysteries, and an account of what Sirius experienced there.


**A/N This is an omniscient narrator, which may explain some scruples is the text. So. Yes. **

**This story was inspired by Rebel by Jewels5, which is honestly the best one-shot of Sirius I've ever seen. Please go read it immediately. I mean it. It's fantastic.**

**This is the creation of many different occasions that I've sat down to write about the veil in the Department of Mysteries, as it is a topic of great interest to me, and I've just combined them all I suppose, which is why it's kind of all over the place. Enjoy anyway!

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The veil was an evil creation.

Such was an absolute truth, and--though some people knew this--none truly knew why.

Some knew the veil was a creation of deepest evil, but they thought it was evil for being a killer. In their defense, they didn't know that the veil was not, in fact, a killer at all. Of course, to them, any kind of life-taking is killing. Just because they disappeared, doesn't mean they die, though. They don't die. Not immediately. Those that go beyond the veil certainly leave this life, though, such is a truth. They enter a life similar to the one they lived before, only so, so much different.

The life they enter isn't an actual life. They don't live it as much as they just view it. The life passes in a moment. But the spectators don't realize how short, how hollow the life is until it's over. While they "live" such a life, they can think of no better life, they love it. It is, their life on the Earth we know, but without any flaws or problems. This is why they whisper.

They whisper to call you on. They whisper to invite you to the life that they've enjoyed behind the veil. That life is the life that you wish for in your past one, that life is perfection, but that life is flawed. That life never existed.

Such a life is different for every person. Seamus Beattie, who fell through after finding the veil in an clearing of woods, went on to live a life in which his wife lived past twenty two, in which they had children and dogs and a steady income; a life in which his wife's parents didn't live past forty, and he and his still-living wife were free to enjoy all the luxuries and happiness of their perfect life. Mort Carter, who fell through in the process of transporting the veil to England's Ministry of Magic, went on to live a life in which his mother never got dragon pox and lived to raise him to believe that Politicians such as his father ended up badly, and never to go work at the Ministry, to become an author as he had so aspired to do. His books became Daily Prophet best-sellers, and he toured the world for book signings and interviews, seeing the globe as he had always wanted to for the remainder of his working life, before retiring and living in a nice house by the countryside. Arabelle Porter fell through when she got lost in the Department of Mysteries, and behind the veil, lived a life in which her child, her only son, lived past birth, went to Hogwarts (where the teachers praised him as just as smart--smarter, even--than his mother), and came to work as an Unspeakable, for she had always been his idol. He married a lovely girl, and soon after presented his proud mother her grandchildren, whom she loved almost as much as she loved her son.

The whispers called only to those who listened, those who had had great tragedy and death in their life, those whose lives could be so improved upon. They called because they thought their lives behind the veil was perfect, and in a way, it was.

But it lasts for all of a minute, a brief and brisk breeze that rushes past in an instant and leaves you with the contrasting heat of actuality still steadily beating down. The actuality that you died young, and unfairly, and left loved ones behind just as your loved ones left you. Pain passes, pain of the mind, that your life came so close to the one you just witnessed, but, but still somehow missed it by miles.

The veil is cruel. It is an invention of pure evil. Not because is kills, but because kills by showing perfection, and then taking it away,

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The last person that falls through the veil is Sirius Black. Known at the time for association with Death Eaters and Voldemort, and the mass murder of twelve, and the first ever to escape from Azkaban. However, as the books now recognize, this is a lie. Black was innocent of these ghastly crimes. But no one that mattered knew that as he fell through the veil.

The presence of the veil is often left out in the story of the Ministry battle of 1996, for it is, in the Grand Scheme of Harry Potter's story, seemingly unimportant. His Godfather died, and the poor man's cousin killed him. That's where the facts stop. Really, the veil is crucial for any who care to know the fate of Sirius Black, which is, in hind sight, not many. The story, in short, was that Harry Potter and his friends had broken into the Ministry and met some Death Eaters, who were clever enough to expect them. They fought for a time before the Order of the Phoenix--Sirius included--came to their aid. Sirius didn't return.

* * *

Beyond the veil, he had everything he had ever wanted.

Beyond the veil, he was born into the Black family that were considered blood traitors, the Black family that loved everyone, especially their eldest son. The Black family that were all Gryffindors. Beyond the veil, his generational family, Regulus, Narcissa, Andy, Bella, they were all as adventurous as they had been before, except they stayed that way: adventurous, but not power-hungry; fun, but not murderous; caring, but not crazy. Beyond the veil, it was perfectly accepted that he be sorted into Gryffindor, and there was no confusion or tension as he met his two roommates for the next seven years, his two best friends for the rest of his life.

Beyond the veil, he spent his seven years at Hogwarts with various girlfriends, until he found the one, the Lily to his James. She was the girl that never existed, that came along and proved him wrong in his theory that love didn't exist. The girl he prayed for at night. Beyond the veil, he graduates with her, and James, and Lily, and Remus, and they all are successful post school. There is no war to hold them back, no Voldemort to destroy their lives. Not beyond the veil.

Soon--as time passes so quickly beyond the veil--he marries his love, with James as his best man, and Lily as the Matron of Honor, (Matron because the two were married as soon as it was legal in the Muggle world, too). At the wedding beyond the veil, his whole family is there: His kind mother crying for her baby, his father beaming with pride, his brother, content with Sirius, no room for jealousy with all the love for his own girl. The Black Sisters, now with different names, the names of Muggle-borns, and even the name of a full-on Muggle, Bella's husband. Their children are with them, Nymphadora, and Max, and the twins, Vega and Mira. They're all so happy for Sirius, that he finally found his addition to their large, happy family, and he couldn't be happier himself. He watches his Bride-to-Be walk down the aisle, her cheeks as pink as the flowers she holds. She has shiny black hair, the long straight kind that Sirius had always harbored a love of; and the deepest brown eyes he's ever seen. He could look into them for hours, as he does, at this wedding beyond the veil.

Beyond the veil, he has a son, and two beautiful daughters: Colin, Charlotte, and Dawn. They grow up to be best friends with their cousins (of sorts) Harry and Rose, and their actual cousins, Regulus' children, Margaret and William. They go to Hogwarts and are all sorted into Gryffindor, making their fathers so very proud.

Beyond the veil, his parents died naturally. He attended their funeral, and he cried for his parents that--beyond the veil--he loved more than anything. Beyond the veil, they went to Heaven, or wherever one goes after a long and morally led life of accepting others and not beating children. For, beyond the veil, this is exactly how Orion and Walburga Black lived their lives.

Beyond the veil, James and Lily live past twenty-one years.

Beyond the veil, Sirius doesn't need to run from home.

Beyond the veil, Harry and Sirius don't have quite so strong a bond, because they don't need each other as much. They have others.

Beyond the veil, he dies old, still a teenager at heart, though. He dies old after a life of pure, beautiful, unstained, perfection. And once that life was over, then he proceeded to face whatever afterlife there was to face.

The veil whispered to those closest to it, those that had seen death. The souls behind it whispered to those that they could reach to come, come and join us. They pull the outsiders to come, come join them in this perfect world beyond the veil.


End file.
